Only Yesterday
by VickytheSnake
Summary: As the world spirals ever closer to what she can only see as impending Armageddon,Doctor Strangelove sets out to rewrite the mistakes of the past with a secret project created alongside and with the aid of the Mammal Pod's power. Facing regrets and pressure from all sides, she utilizes her untested machine to send herself back in time to save the woman she loved.
1. Chapter 1: The Woman Who Loved the Boss

_After long enough of being alone_

 _Everyone must face their share of loneliness_

 _In my own time, nobody knew_

 _The pain I was goin' through_

 _And waitin' was all my heart could do_

-The Carpenters, Only Yesterday.

"And yet...Sometimes at night...I can still feel the pain creeping up inside of me. Slithering through my body...like a snake."

The voice of a ghost echoed mechanically through the small workroom, drowned out by elevated voices of the two figures bathed in the impersonal and sterile white laboratory lights. The dull white light of a screensaver illuminated the battered tin of a snuff case beside piles and piles of reports bearing the insignia XOF and covered in censor bars.

"You took my SON away from me!" The man with wild hair and thick glasses shouted , gesticulating expressively with his hands, voice cracking in his anger "You sent him away without even ASKING ME?"

The woman was thin, whiplike and as pale as a pearl. She stared down at him with contempt though long lashes.

"Only after you attempted to use him as Skullface's little labrat" She sneered in her cold and english-accented voice "You wanted a _little boy_ to pilot a potentially fatal machine of _total war._ Of course I sent him away. Somewhere he'll be safe and as far away from his wretch of a father as he can be"

"Safe?" The man's hands gestured wildly, threatening to knock something off the crowded shelves "Sahalanthropus is completely safe! And my OWN SON doesn't have to be protected from ME!" His voice cracked again, heat seething behind his words "This is to spite me, isn't it? You've always been too bitter and obsessed with that woman to care about anything but that unfeeling machine!"

"Thats where you're mistaken, Huey." she sneered at him "If you were a halfway competent scientist, you wouldn't need to endanger my child just to get some data. This isn't about spite, It's about logic." She cooly turned her back to him to look into the pulsing red light of the Mammal Pod "and you're wrong about her being unfeeling."

"Like a snake…" Repeated the pod in it's tinny replica of a dead woman's voice.

"See what I mean?" he snapped "you're obsessed!"

"You wouldn't understand love if it smacked you across that empty head of yours" She murmured bitterly "Get out of my office, Huey. Complain to that skeletal bastard if you wish. I don't care, as long as he's safe. Far away from the parasite who attempted to turn him into a sacrifice to the god of war."

The slamming door sounded with finality, leaving her alone in the red-tinted room.

"If only you could really be here , Joy" She sighed and cleared a small space at the desk to lean on , her eyes downcast "Whatever would you think of the woman I've become"

"Goodmorning Doctor" came the pre-programed greeting.

The doctor known as Strangelove rested her head on the table as the chill of the workroom penetrated through her. She closed her eyes.

"It's night, Joy" She muttered. "I'll fix your sensors in the morning. But until then, trust me. It's night" She closed her eyes to try and stem the tears that threatened to fall. "The stars are out in full force tonight." She shivered, pulling on her coat. "I'm going to go watch them. For the both of us."

"Doctor, Do not go alone" The pod said, another pre-programed phrase she'd fed into the system ages ago.

"I won't, Joy. You'll still be with me" She wound the old bandanna around her hand inside her pocket. The old fabric was frayed at the edges from so much worrying by her fingers, but it was still _hers._ "I'll be safe" She hesitated, her body tensed.

But it'd been too long since she'd heard it last. Those simple words that she hadn't heard since the last time she saw her son. Since the last time she got to handle the Mammal Pod without feeling too ashamed of what she'd done to it over the recent years.

"I…" She swallowed the lump in her throat "I love you , Joy" It was the first call and response she ever programmed into the hulking machine. She waited to hear if it still worked, even as her enemies hurt and maimed her neural network.

"I love you, Doctor" Came the pod's reply, in a low and quiet tone.

The door shut on the pod with a soft click, as it returned to it's quiet murmuring of Joy's last day.

"Kill me now" It asked a room that held no answer.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

A night filled with stars gave way into a morning filled with coffee, snuff, and disappointment. The Doctor's desk was covered in new reports from her XOF overseers , demanding progress on her project. The battered tin box, newly emptied, was useless to her now. In need of refilling. They wanted the pod to be more efficient. They wanted it to power that damned machine of theirs. The brain to a massive, hulking monster. But she didn't have a choice in the matter. Orders were orders.

Especially when they were asked of you with the cold barrel of a pistol pressed against the back of your neck. Figuratively.

And perhaps a little literally as well.

Dr. Strangelove brushed her fingers over the keys of the program console. It wouldn't be of any use. She had to go into the pod and physically rearrange some components in her core.

She had assistants, yes. And that wretch Emmerich was assigned to the same project. But the interior of the pod was for her hands alone. Only hers. Because this machine with the voice of the woman she loved was the culmination of so much work.

Work she couldn't stray from. Not after all she'd seen. She was there, since the beginning. She watched Joy take off into space, and dug her out of the wreckage with burning hands and tears in her eyes. She'd heard the news that the Boss defected while having a quick dinner between programming sessions at Langley. She didn't believe a word of it.

She fought the man she knew killed her. She built the Mammal Pod into a vessel for her spirit. She saw the pain in his eyes as he too tried to figure out Joy's true will.

She saw him fail in his pursuit. She saw him walk an ever darkening path and left his base before it came to pass.

She , under pain of death, helped to create another nightmarish perversion of Joy's final will. For the mysterious Cipher. who didn't at all understand those last pain filled words. Damn him.

She'd seen just how deep the tendrils of corruption spread. Snaking through history from Coldman, the man who killed Joy and set the world down this future as dark as a starless sky, to her old grief-twisted comrade, to the misguided protege fixated on a world where soldiers always had a purpose.

Everyone got Joy's will wrong. And with every new bloody fool who butchered her words to make them look appealing to their purposes, the world sunk deeper into the quagmire of endless cold war.

She glowered at an assistant who bumped his way past her computer with a stack of reports in his hands.

She stood and threw her coat on over her shoulders in a smooth motion, leaving her empty snuff box behind. Her eyes narrowed at the thought of all those men.

She knew, after that nightmare in South America, what the Boss' true will was. She alone understood those final words. She'd heard them enough. Ran them over and over and over inside her head and through the machine at her fingertips. She wove between the bustle of military scientists to the main command console, and began running her diagnostic.

Joy was the light of her life. That perfect moon-glow of her presence may have changed over the years into the piercing , thrumming red that filled her workroom late at night, but she was still there. Hidden in circuits, cores and wires. Creating her own personal night sky of pin-pricked LED's and winking indicator lights.

Hiding her secrets.

The diagnostic began, and asked for a login confirmation. She didn't use her XOF login. _They_ knew that one. They could keep tabs on her activity. But for this she needed them in the darkness. She typed in her private login, and watched the computer accept it...giving her access to the full scan exclusive only to her.

Because secrets she had indeed. Because she'd grown tired of wallowing in misery and loneliness years ago. She was a genius, after all. She saw a problem in the desecration of her Joy's wishes, and her logical mind planned to fix it.

The AI was...adequate in helping her understand her will a little better. But it was only a stopgap measure. The only way to kill the memetic virus that was the very idea of the metal gear. To get true peace…. Was to start over.

Chirps and beeps emitted from the computer as readouts appeared over the graphic of the pod and it's interior. Cooling fans, venting properly. Chassis, no breach detected. Core temperature, acceptable. She spoke up

"Recite the test phrase for me, Joy"

"The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog…..Doctor" Came her simulated voice.

"Very nice. It seems your vocal capabilities are still in working order after what those barbarians did to you"

"Did to me" repeated the pod.

Strangelove sighed, and clicked on an area in the interior of the Pod's structure. A storage tank for air...for nutritional supplements. And an engine that drained the Pod's energy more than anything the blunders of Huey and his masters could have done. She was so...so sorry for that. But it had to be done. Everything was for her. For a world where neither of them would be trapped in prisons of loneliness or steel.

The mistakes of their shared past ate at the world like a parasite. The only cure was to stop it before it all began. Or alter it...somehow. Some things had to stay the same. Or...similar. Like Hal, a child she cared more for than expected. A child of her blood and Joy's dreams.

His wretch of a father could go. Science of course, cut out the more...unsavory parts of that union. And science could do it again. This time without the fool trying to latch on like a diseased tick. She'd never loved him. She thought he was a friend. She respected him, briefly, before she realized what she thought was kind intelligence was just a mask over a coward who blamed the world for his own cruelties and mistakes.

A damned fool. And soon she would be rid of him. She would be rid of everything she'd ever regretted or despised.

Of course, the AI component of the Mammal Pod was in perfect working order (though perhaps the coolants could be rerouted and a few of the boards could use some updates, and… no. She was getting sidetracked). It didn't need any more work. It was the great, thrumming engine in the center she was concerned with.

It was the result of a wayward thought about the nature of time. She'd done a lot of reading about time and reality since she lost Joy to the vicious hunger of man. She watched readouts flash before her eyes. It looked like the machine was stable. That it wouldn't, at least, suffer a critical meltdown upon it's first use.

She'd been reading about time since she discovered just how little of it she likely had left. And she read it with her logical mind. The mind that so impressed Turing and charmed the attentions of Joy back when there was no Strangelove..only the young doctor with her unscarred hands and hopeful optimism for a future in the stars.

Her logical mind had come up with an answer.

Her logical mind had built a machine that would either kill her, or it would give her one of the rarest things this world had to offer. A second chance. One not even Skullface, Huey, or Cipher could take from her.

The pod's readouts said it was in good shape. Enough power was being diverted to her little side project. And if any of her many notes and probes into the subject were correct...it would work. Maybe. But such was the price of science. She'd try some subjects first. Some mice, maybe.

But for the moment, she was satisfied with the results. She closed the illicit files, and went back to more mundane tests and checks. More of her 'assistants' busied themselves with schematics of the behemoth the pod was supposed to power behind her like frenzied worker bees. They were easy to tune out.

It was as easy as it was to lose herself in her work and let the thoughts of the day drift away in the sea of facts, figures and code. It was a joy all in it's own. That work. It was all she had to live for, some days. Things had gotten...better...after Costa Rica. But they hadn't healed completely.

Huey only made them worse.

And everything she heard about Jack...Snake..Big Boss, whatever he was going by these days… that only compounded it.

But all those thoughts were distractions. She shook her mind free of them, and with a remote control, flipped on the speakers around the lab.

Assistants jolted, voices yelped in surprise as a cheerful whistle began to pipe through the laboratory. It filled the room, and drowned out the concerns and the murmurs of discontent that were plaguing her work. Strangelove couldn't help but smile as the familiar song played.

She hummed along as she typed on the console, her head gently bobbing along with the melody.

 _Sing, sing a song. Sing out loud, sing out strong_

The light of the Mammal Pod began to pulse in time to the music. It's engines thrummed, until a shrill and faltering series of beeps began playing through it's exterior speakers. The thrumming turned into a sharp, shrill whirr.

 _Sing of good things not bad. Sing of happy not sad_

Dr. Strangelove approached the pod, opening its chassis, and stepping inside. She sang along with the song, brushing her fingers over memory boards and wires. The electricity in the air hummed in her ears and tingled through her fingertips.

 _Sing, sing a song. Make it simple to last your whole life long_

The doctor removed her gloves, and tossed them aside. The scars from the Mercury Seven project marred more than just her mind. Crinkled burn scars traveled from her palms, up her wrists and along her forearms. Memories of the price both her and The Boss paid for America's pride.

The shrill whirr resolved itself into a halting feminine voice. That ghostly echo of The Boss. The Ghost in the Machine, that began to softly form the words of the song.

"Don't...wor….ood ..nough…" it started "For...Anyone..else...t...hear"

Dr. Strangelove guided the Mammal Pod, just as she did when she was first building her. She sang the words, softly and slowly as she worked on redirecting the heat flow through the core of the AI pod.

 _Just sing, sing a song. Sing, sing a song_ The pod and her sang together. Despite the assistants. Despite the distractions, they were alone together in the moment. Singing _their_ song. And in those moments, time seemed to slip away from her more than usual. Through loop after loop after loop of the Carpenter's classic, day turned into night. The assistants were gone...and there was only her.

Not that she minded. She preferred the solitude. Even her time in MSF hadn't dulled her desire to avoid most other people. With...of course...a few exceptions. She rarely let anyone into her heart. And those whom she did had to earn their way into that sacred ground.

She didn't know how much longer she worked. The minutes slipped by. It was dark out she knew that from her wristwatch. The stars were likely out. She contemplated stopping her work to go and stargaze for a moment...but she was too focused on her work to stop now.

It wasn't until the sharp, shrill sound of metal on metal rang out in the AI pod's interior that her workflow was interrupted. Her head snapped up, just in time to see the seated figure of Huey shoving the pod's door shut. The slam echoed through the small space, followed soon after by the hiss of air as the pod sealed shut. He must have engaged the locks from the console.

Panic overwhelmed her for an oxygen-wasting moment. Her fists slammed against cold metal, echoing dully into the room beyond as she shouted herself hoarse. She used up precious air shouting for the damned bastard to open the door. To free her. That he was a murderer.

She knew he was out there, listening. Waiting for the moment her fists stopped pounding and her body went limp. Her eyes turned cold in that moment as the fear was chilled out of her. She let out a hissing breath. "I won't give him the bloody satisfaction" she spat, and turned towards Joy's core. The AI pod had begun emitting a chirping sound with the sudden activity.

Her air was going to run out if she didn't do something. The bastard had seen to that. But what the bastard didn't know was the Pod's secret purpose. Dr. Strangelove's lips twisted into a grim smile.

"Lets see how you like it when I wipe you out of the history books, Huey Emmerich" she snarled, grabbing the interior console and typing in a rapid series of commands. "Try to harm _my_ son. Try to rub me out? Bloody idiot"

The great hidden machine inside the Core hummed to life, which activated the cooling units along its chassis with a mechanical scream. Fans hummed to life, lights dimmed and flickered with the rerouting of power. A panel opened up in the floor of the pod, next to a small command console hidden near the memory boards. She huddled low against the warm chassis of the machine, and reached into the panel. First was the oxygen mask. She strapped it onto her face, and took long, deep breaths of the filtered air. She didn't know how long this would take. She'd yet to test it properly. She didn't want to die of asphyxiation before she got the damned thing started. Then came the small IV, with enough liquid nutrients to last her...a few days, if she was lucky. She wasn't sure what the state of her body would be during this adventure. And Starvation wasn't a pleasant way to die. She rested against the chassis for a moment, breathing deep of the air and shivering as the cold IV dripped into her veins.

When she'd calmed enough to think, she pulled the command console close, and set it on her lap. This ….experiment...was insane. But it was this or die. She wasn't ready. She hadn't tested the device yet...but it was all she had. She closed her eyes, fingers shaking as she tried to type the date into the provided boxes. Two weeks before the Snake Eater mission. Enough time to stop this once and for all.

Fear caused her breaths to swallow, before she forced herself to steady them. No sense wasting the purified air. Fear was no excuse to lose control. She'd been scared plenty of times before. She wasn't a stranger to fear and she sure as hell wasn't about to let it consume her. It was do or die.

Besides. Either way she got to see Joy again.

It was worth it.

Her shaking fingers hit the enter key of the machine, as she attached the needle and suction pad connected to the machine to the back of her neck, connecting her with the machine. A sudden, sharp shock rocked through her skull , and her fingers twitched over the keys. The numbers on the date readout were altered by her unintentional keystrokes, but the electrical sensation humming through her body drove all sense from her. She didn't have the time to even notice.

She could only sink against the chassis of the Pod as the humming of the machine grew louder and louder around her. A deep, loud pulse like the beat of a heart in a lover's chest pounded in her ears. Her vision blurred and distorted in time with the thrum, and for a moment, she thought perhaps she was really going to die in here. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps through the breathing tube, the world began to go dark at the corners of her vision.

She could feel the static of temporal energy crackle over her skin. It was familiar to her as any other radiation. The engine inside the pod stored and converted the strange energy into a usable form...and now she was flooding her body with the volatile stuff.

She prayed to the stars above that this would not kill her. That the program designed to manipulate the time/space energies around her into a specific date and time would not prove to be a failure. But her body was going numb, and her vision had pinpricked until the world had turned into a spot of light on an infinite expanse of black.

The chirps and beeps of the Mammal Pod resolved as her vision went black into the soft voice of The Boss….Joy. Her slightly mechanical voice sung to the doctor in a soft and comforting whisper.

 _Sing of love there could be, sing for you and for me_

Dr. Strangelove reached up blindly with numb hands, hands that didn't feel a part of her. Her painted lips parted into a soft smile, mouthing along with the music. For a moment, it felt as if arms had closed around her, pulling her into the embrace of the darkness.

She was aware that she stopped breathing...and for a moment, she floated there in that infinite darkness, breathless. It was cold, lonely, and emptier than anything she ever could have imagined.

But then, in the distance, a small dot of light appeared. And then another. And another. Until these pulsing dots formed a network of stars and constellations that filled the void like the night sky of her dreams.

Each seemed so tiny, the size of a flea in her mind's eye, but she had the feeling that each one was inescapably huge. Nigh-infinite in and of itself. Pieces of a never-ending whole. She felt like crying , but she was nothing in this starscape. She had no body for those tears to come.

It was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. And for a moment, she _understood_ what Joy had seen out there among the stars. Within the beauty of the void. Where everything was one, and lines carved by greedy men meant nothing.

Uncountable moments later, she felt a strange tug. The lights approached her mind's eye, her speed increasing and increasing until the constellations became nothing more than streaking lines in her vision.

She sped through the sea of multicolored light and void, fast approaching one of the pinpricks in the distance. It grew larger as she flew closer. First the size of a softball...then a van...then a building...until there was nothing but the light.

She hit it, and sensation rushed back to her with the concussive force of a freight train. Dr. Strangelove jolted suddenly forward. Her eyes, physical once more, snapped open only to be dazzled by the light. Everything was a blur,and she found her physical feet stumbling along a tile floor.

Her mind reeled, struggling to make sense of everything around her. Her vision blurred through the dark haze of her familiar sunglasses. She was breathing. A good sign. She could feel her legs...and…

"Woah there, Harriet" A male voice laughed to her left "I know they're national heroes, but you don't have to go tripping all over yourself at first sight"

Another voice murmured "Which is why we shouldn't have a damned woman on this project."

Vision focused, still too-bright and uncomfortable, and resolved itself into a white and blue hallway. On the back wall, was a long familiar logo emblazoned behind a group of men in orange space suits. NASA.

She'd recognize them anywhere. The Mercury Seven. As young as the day she last saw them.

Her breaths grew shallow...quick… She looked down, over her ill-fitting suit jacket. Over the NASA badge emblazoned with 'Dr. Harriet Camille Sutton- Computer Science and Engineering' , and to her shaking hands.

Her shaking , smooth hands. No crinkled scar tissue. No dark burns against her pale and colorless skin. Nothing but smooth flesh.

She'd set the date right, didn't she? And where was the AI Pod? Her way home? It was supposed to come with her right?

No...no she was in her own body. Her own...younger...body. Meaning only her consciousness must have traveled through the time stream.

Her mind raced with possibilities and theories without answers, as before her the men posed for a photograph.

"With the help of these brave men" came her Director's voice through the fog in her mind "America will triumph on its race to the stars"

It was too much.

Dr. Harriet Camille Sutton , computer scientist and engineer on the Mercury Project, collapsed onto NASA's cold tile floor in a dead faint.


	2. And the Stars Look Very Different Today

_Hope was all I had until you came_

 _Maybe you can't see how much you mean to me_

 _You were the dawn breaking the night_

 _The promise of mornin' light_

 _Filling the world surroundin' me_

 _When I hold you_

-The Carpenters, Only Yesterday

Dr. Strangelove was first aware of the scent of antiseptic. Unpleasant and sharp, it stirred her mind back awake more than the sounds or sights could have. There was a tight, slightly painful pressure on her head and the sense of blankets surrounding her.

Her eyes slowly opened to the blinding light, before snapping shut with a muttered "Damn and blast"

She was in a medical bed. That was clear. Where, she wasn't sure. These spaces were so cut and paste they could belong in any government facility or school and she wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

She confirmed with her fingers what her eyes knew. Her glasses had been removed. WHich would make it difficult to see, given her sensitivities. She frowned, and slowly sat up to a seated position.

Was she back at XOF's facility, waking up after a rather botched medical experiment. Which would mean someone must have opened the pod before her air ran out….No...She fumbled for her sunglasses, only for someone to take her hand, and place them directly on top of them.

"So you're finally awake, Harriet" A soft voice with a distant familiarity. Perhaps from her college days. She placed the sunglasses on her nose, and finally opened her eyes to adjust to the harsh and sterile light.

It resolved into a nondescript medical facility. Just as she suspected from her earlier glimpse. But the equipment was so out of date she couldn't be in XOF's facility.

The woman standing before her bed made that a certainty. The nurse smiled softly with darkly painted lips

"Well. You're finally awake, Harriet. I have to admit, you gave me a nasty shock!" chirped the resident nurse. "It's not like you to go fainting like that."

"I…" Dr. Strangelove pressed her hand to her head, swallowing hard. "I had a long day" She tried to shake the hoarse whisper from her throat with a cough. "I don't think I got much sleep last night"

Georgette Legardeur, the doctor recalled. That was her name. Nurse Legardeur to most...but to the doctor….

Georgette's dark cheeks flushed, and a shy smile crossed her lips as she waved her hand in a playful fanning motion

"Oh, I think I can attest that you did not, Doctor Sutton"

"...Oh I remember" Strangelove's cheeks flushed with the rush of blood, all too evident with her overly-fair complexion.

So it was true. It had worked just fine. It wasn't a dream, or a deathbed hallucination. The AI pod had worked. And now here she was, back in 1958. Back before the Peace Walker, or even Snake Eater when she was scarcely 18, flirting in the shadows with those women likely to reciprocate her particular tastes. Consummating those flirtations under the stars, in some cases.

Back before she met The Boss.

Her heart raced. Which meant before the Boss died. Or was even injured in reentry. THoughts raced like a fox outracing a hound in her head. She knew this was going to be a long game. She was aware of that. Lots of things to change via intervention….but some must stay the same. For she had one chance.

And Dr. Sutton was not a gambling woman. She took enough of a gamble with this trip in the first place. She'd just have to be careful what she changed.

"Maybe I should let you actually get some rest tonight" the woman laughed "i think you need it"

"perhaps. As much as it pains me" Dr. Sutton chuckled. she put her hand to her chest "tonight would be a poor night to have another long talk about the stars" She winked flirtatiously.

Georgette was now the one to flush, and she gave the doctor a wide grin, before blowing her a kiss, and shifting off the edge of the bed

"I should be going. I think I must be late to my station at this point" She smoothed out her hair

"Only by about ten minutes, Harriet" the nurse said with a shake of her head "Golly, you weren't out for very long at all. Just a little fainting spell, I think. Probably all the excitement"

If only she knew just how much excitement there really was. Breaking the laws of time and space, nearly being murdered, and having to come up with a master plan to change the bloody world without winding them in a worse situation than they started in. All within the span of twelve bloody hours.

"Wonderful. Wonderful" Strangelove murmured distractedly. This was the arrival of the Mercury Seven. Meaning it wouldn't be long until they brought in Joy...The Boss, as an advisor.

The pale whip of a woman stood with an easy grace, and adjusted her askew tie with a thin smile towards the attractive nurse.

"Now , I'll be seeing you later, Georgette. Can't let those dastardly Russians see the stars before us, can we?" she ran her fingers through her hair, smoothing it out, before giving a curt wave to the woman.

"See you later Harriet!" The nurse cooed after her, all smiles and flushed cheeks.

Harriet didn't often find bedmates and casual lovers, with her… preferences. But fate certainly had smiled upon her days at NASA. Between Georgette's timid excitement and….Joy.

The doctor turned her thoughts away from the strong, confident , and utterly beautiful mother of the special forces to more serious matters. It wouldn't do to walk into the computing labs looking like a bloody blushing schoolgirl.

There was work to do, after all. If she was going to keep the time stream predictable, she'd have to keep working at least until Joy arrived.

She pushed the door open, and into the whirring and clicking of the computer room. Nostalgia overwhelmed her as her cool eyes took in the spinning reels and printing paper. The few stools and the men in white shirts and ties looking desperate for a cigarette or some sleep. The graphs of trajectories and concerns with the latest rocket.

A thin frown crossed her face. This was after Sputnik. After the Russians got that first probe into the mystery of space. Tensions and anxiety were high in the walls of Cape Canaveral, and that meant little sleep for those behind the famous faces and politicians.

Those under that pressure were of course engineers, mathematicians, and computing scientists like herself, who survived on coffee and hope. Or, in her case, a whole lot of spite. Combined with yet more coffee, of course.

She took a deep breath, and strolled into the room with as neutral and impassive an expression as she could manage. They all saw her as the stony, cold, and antisocial genius here. None of these men ever earned a glimpse at her passion. They didn't deserve it.

She walked past them as idle chatter ceased, turning towards the coffee pots and mugs off in the corner of the room by the endlessly chirping computer readouts. Silence filled the room like fog, as she quietly poured herself a mug of black coffee, and turned to sit before the piles of folding paper displaying the computer's results.

They were wrong, of course. There were terrible problems with both the heat shields and the shape of the rocket's pod, serious problems with the trajectory and a million other things that plagued this bloody program.

She'd been so optimistic about it back then...or now, she supposed. Way back when she was a naive young woman desperate to see the stars and settling for giving another that chance while she stayed locked upon the ground.

But now, jaded with the knowledge of the future, that joy was somewhat dulled. Not exactly eliminated, but dulled. But she could change things. She remembered the correct answers from the readouts and calculations that occurred during and after the test flight. From the successful pods created for the Mercury Project.

An unexpected smile broke through her blank expression.

She could fix The Boss' pod so she wasn't blasted with radiation. So the heat shielding wouldn't fail. So neither of them would burn. This would be a test. A test to see if one woman really could change the future, or if the path was set in stone no matter what she did.

Her good cheer was rudely interrupted by Dr. Lawrence. One of the other computer scientists on board the project. And a bloody moron, the doctor reminded herself.

"Someone's in a good mood" The stocky Lawrence said, a grin plastered on his sun-tanned face. With the way his hair flipped and waved despite how often he combed it and those blocky glasses, Dr. Sutton always had felt he looked a little bit like a husky clark kent.

She sipped her coffee, and stared at him through her dark lenses. She responded with only the quirk of an eyebrow and a sharp frown.

"Saw you faint when the Mercury Boys showed up" he chuckled "Probably the most emotion I've ever seen out of you" he sipped his own coffee, "But I hope you can reign it in next time Glenn goes walking by? Can't have you late every time he stops in to check up on things"

Dr. Sutton closed her eyes "Hah. Hah. Yes, very funny." She said in a clipped and irritated tone "I take it you had more to say than to tease me about what, for all you know, is a medical condition? Or are you just here to be in the way?" She flipped through the reports with renewed vigor. Just to spite these damned fools, she'd finish _her_ work at double the speed that they could manage. AND slip in a few actual corrections while she was at it.

He shrugged, a smile still on his face "I see you're as fine as ever. Good to know" he said , punctuating his sentence with a sip of his coffee. "Aside from your little display earlier, I had a few questions about yesterday's readouts. You stayed late to work on them, right?"

She nodded, vaguely recalling that she had.

He rubbed his neck "well. I know you're supposedly the best England had to offer and ah, one of our key staff members, But we here would really appreciate it if you'd give it to one of us to double check before sending it to the director"

Her lip twitched, just the slightest "no. I'm afraid that would just be a waste of time. And I think we're rather behind as it is. Or you want to be the one telling the Director about why Stalin's boys are waving at us from the moon while we're stuck on the ground?" Not to mention, they'd just add their names to her reports. Or change data she knew was correct because of foolish pride. It had happened before. It would again.

The man stiffened, his eyes narrowing. Comments that didn't fit in an atmosphere of mutual professionalism caught in his throat, and she swore she could see him choke them back down.

"Dr. Sutton" He said, trying to stifle his irritation with a deep breath, "I mean no disrespect, but we have far more experience in this sort of thing than you" He said with an air of superiority "I mean, you're…."

"A woman?" She provided, glaring at him over the rim of her mug.

"I was going to say young!" He defended, bitterly

"And this is a young field. Most of the systems here haven't been around long enough for anyone to have 'more experience' than I." SHe said 'this is all new. New math. New science. And it's science that even a _young woman_ can do" She mocked, before she turned back to the readouts "I will continue sending my reports as I always have, Nathan. And you'll see in time just why NASA hired me in the capacity they did. Have a little respect and faith in your own superiors and trust that I do not need _you_ to check my answers, hmm? I've been doing similar to this since i was a little girl"

He turned, with a huff of disgust, and walked back to his desk, muttering something she only caught the middle part of. Something about 'bitter unmarried women'.

She snorted under her breath, and continued reading the printouts, and inputting new data and numbers into the console to make her corrections.

The obnoxious behavior of most men bothered her, yes, but they were easy enough to push out of her mind and ignore. Thank the stars she wasn't even remotely attracted to them, then or now. Her life would have been a bloody misery. More so than usual.

It was much better to think of the beautiful Georgette...or….in a few weeks time, Joy. Thinking of them while she worked on her corrections and data adjustment made the time fly.

Lunch passed with hardly a whimper. Cold lo mein sat on the edge of console tables, amid stacks of paper and folders. Lunch turned into the end of the work day with hardly a second thought, and Dr. Sutton took her work to drop off personally to the Director's office.

It was shocking how easily she fell back into the workflow at NASA, as different as it was to her time in Costa Rica or XOF. She remembered the hallways like the back of her own hand. Remembered the work as well as she did her old AI research on the Peace Walker project. It was all as familiar to her as an old set of gloves.

It wasn't long before her research was dropped off, and Dr. Sutton surrendered herself to the mercy of sleep.

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Time flew in a foggy mist of coffee, data, reports and petty irritations. Weeks went by, with minor progress on the impending test launches with kudos and warnings about how important it was for America, a land not even her own , to get into space before the Russians did.

It all didn't matter much to Strangelove. She worked with a dedication to easing her future knowledge into today's research as seamlessly as possible, and lost the days to her work and the occasional nocturnal fling.

But what did matter was one single day on the calendar. And it was a day that had finally arrived. The day that Joy herself would grace the halls of NASA to participate in the Mercury Program.

Strangelove stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her pale hair was brushed professionally, held in place with a single black barrette. She'd put on her finest suit, the one with the subtle pinstripes of dark gray on black. It contrasted with the bright ruby of her lips and her colorless skin. She smiled at her reflection, before giving herself a cool and hopefully mysterious look instead.

Neither look could satisfy her nerves, and she pulled on her heavy red jacket with a soft sigh. She impressed Joy the first time, and she was a bloody mess then. A bundle of young nerves in a rumpled suit, she'd once been called.

She swallowed, and ran her fingers through her hair one more time as she lingered by the front door. Fear held her like the grip of a vice. What if she didn't make as good an impression….what if Joy took one look at the woman she'd become in the shell of the woman she was and found her lacking?

She closed her eyes, and sucked in a deep breath. If Joy found her lacking, then she'd bloody well prove her wrong, that's what would damned well happen.

WIth her confidence steeled by her will, she tugged her hood up over her head, and stormed out into the all too-bright light of the day.

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Dr. Sutton sat in the briefing room, amid an atmosphere of anticipation and curiosity. The Director had an announcement about a new advisor for the team, and the news had spread like a wildfire across the facility.

But the Doctor knew exactly who it was. And she had snagged a front row seat to see her unhindered. Her notepad lay open before her, scrawled with notes in a code meant for her eyes only.

This was the first major step. And the first major obstacle in this suicidal trip back in time. Her pencil tapped gently against paper, creating a mini-starfield of graphite between two alphanumerical strings.

It wasn't until the stragglers came in that the Director approached the podium with a wide grin on his wrinkled face.

"Today" he boomed "We have the honor of inviting an American hero into our halls. An innovator in the field of combat and military maneuvers. Please welcome to the Mercury Program….The Boss, Mother of the Special Forces!" he politely clapped, and stepped away from the podium.

Strangelove's heart practically seized in her chest as time seemed to slow.

It'd been years since she saw her alive. And as healthy as a woman who'd been shot, irradiated, and stabbed could possibly be. She was still so beautiful, dressed in her olive green military fatigues. Her broad shoulders and strong jaw gave her a powerful, sturdy beauty that made Strangelove's heart flutter. As a young scientist, it had seemed to be love at first sight. And even now, the sight of her standing there filled her with the feeling.

She swallowed, well aware that her face had flushed a crimson , striking red. Her fingers tightened on her pencil, and drew meaningless circles around the borders of the paper in her distraction.

The Boss turned her blue-grey eyes towards the crowd as she stood behind the podium. Those eyes, which Strangelove always found so haunting, scanned over the collection of scientists and engineers and took some sort of note of each.

Strangelove tried to look dignified and aloof, just as she had as a teenager. For for the first time in this trip, she felt the exact same as she had back then. Shy, nervous, and utterly enraptured by this beautiful, striking woman.

She wanted to leap up and embrace her in front of all these people. To hold her close and tell her how much she missed her warm voice and intense stare. She wanted to talk to her about the stars and the future. She desperately wanted to bury herself in her strong embrace, and tell her all the myriad of traumas she experienced out there in a world without Joy.

But she couldn't. Her logical mind forced her body to stop its half rise from her chair. She settled back down, making it look as if she was simply adjusting her posture.

Joy...this Joy….she didn't know her. She was a stranger to her. Any attempt to pretend that wasn't the case would only drive her away and make Sutton look like a fool.

She was dimly aware that in her state of self-absorption, she missed the first half of Joy's statements to the team. She flushed even deeper , inwardly cursed, and turned her attention back to The Boss' speech.

"And while I am no scientist myself" The Boss spoke clearly, in her careful tone "I am perfectly willing to lend what I did learn developing the HALO jump and other military techniques to both the Mercury Seven and the scientists and engineers."

Dr. Sutton knew she'd do so much more. Between offering ideas of her own and being their damned test subject, The Boss would change the course of the Mercury Project forevermore. And Dr. Sutton would be right there in the middle. Then as well as now.

There was a smattering of applause, which Dr. Sutton joined in on with a genuine smile for the serious military woman before her.

Questions came next. Some asked about simple things, like if she would be willing to take a look at trajectory notes with them. Or if she would come see the pod and it's parachute. Others asked her questions about how to train a pilot to survive an emergency ejection at a lower than optimal altitude.

These she answered in short, but informative replies.

Yes. Yes. She would be happy to demonstrate if any of the men were willing to go up in a plane with her.

Dr. Sutton raised her hand, and steeled her nerves.

"Yes?"

"Dr. Sutton, Computer Systems and Engineering" She introduced herself with a small smile "It's wonderful to meet you, ma'am. But ah, well" She tapped her pencil on her paper "I work with the computer systems here at NASA as well as help with the engineering side of things" She gestured vaguely with her pencil "I was wondering if you would like to take a look at the heat shields later and give a layman's opinion on if they would hold up to atmospheric drag and reentry?"

It was the exact thing she had said the first time around. An excuse more than anything to get the woman alone and ask her some questions about her military work and about her thoughts on the stars and space.

She knew the answer before it came out of The Boss' mouth.

A short nod and a "Absolutely"

Dr. Sutton only just managed to reign in her excitement enough to give a curt nod.

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"Sing, Sing a song" Hummed Dr. Sutton as she waited by the entrance to the rocket bay, waiting for Joy to arrive "Sing out loud, Sing out strong" The song wouldn't be written for years now, but she couldn't stop herself from breaking the timestream just this little bit.

It was one of her favorites after all. The time-space continuum could very well deal with it if it opposed to her singing while she was all by herself.

She stood upright as Joy approached from around the corner. She stopped singing immediately, and smoothed her features into her usual cool and professional expression.

"Hello Ma'am. Thank you for coming so soon. I know you must be busy." Dr. Sutton said with an easy confidence she didn't quite feel "It's an honor to meet you in the flesh, Boss." She attempted to still the tremor in her hand as she extended it to the woman she'd loved and lost.

Warm, war-calloused fingers took hers, and gave her hand a firm shake. Dr. Sutton's smooth, pale fingers closed gently around her hand, shaking just as firmly in return.

She could feel Joy's eye on her ID badge, which danged just over the slight rise of her breasts in the tailored suit.

"Dr. Harriet Sutton." The Boss said , raising her head to lock eyes with the reflective surface of Strangelove's shades.

And somehow that was all it took to turn the normally composed doctor's thought processes into jelly. Sure, she had been with her at the meeting. Seen her again. Heard her speak. But now, here Joy was, face to face with her, alone, alive again. It was all the trembling doctor could do not to throw herself into the woman's arms. What a fuss that would surely make…

Her hand had not left Joy's yet. But now it was frozen in her grasp, her quivering fingers holding tighter in the fear that the moment she let go, Joy would disappear once again. This time forever. Leaving her alone in a lonely world.

But Joy was alive. And she was _here._ It was more than she could stand. Under the buzzing fluorescent lights of the NASA hallway, framed by the nondescript black door, and walls peppered with security propaganda posters, they were both there. Alive.

Strangelove no longer felt like the walking dead. No longer like a wraith wandering the earth desperate to put unfinished business to rest and let herself drift off to death. She was aware, dimly, of the tears that cut twin trails down her cheeks. They dripped from below her sunglasses, and down her cheek. Her shoulders trembled as she attempted to hold it all inside. She couldn't make a fuss.

She couldn't scare Joy away. Not this early. Not at this first meeting. But she couldn't help herself. Embarrassing, no, humiliating as it was, she couldn't hold the emotion inside her.

Strangelove stepped backwards, pushing her glasses up to wipe the tears from her eyes and meeting Joy's eyes without the obstruction. She stepped backwards again, all too aware of how close their bodies were. All too aware of how this had gone from a simple 'first' meeting to an unmitigated emotional disaster. She swallowed shakily

"I… I'm sorry, ma'am." She said with a voice choked by emotion "I'm sorry. You just...You just reminded me of someone." Her lips formed a ruby-painted line across her pale face "I…" Her voice trailed off.

"Of course," the Boss said, mercifully brushing aside the doctor's awkward pause. "No one briefed me that there was another woman on this project."

The mercy was well received, and it gave the Doctor a moment to compose herself and straighten her posture, finally letting go of Joy's hand.

"Oh? Well that is a surprise" She said with a cocky half grin "Because these rockets aren't getting off the ground without me. You'd think they'd deign to give me a little bloody credit, hmm?" She chuckled, wiping the last of the tears from her face.

"I was recruited by NASA once they recognized my skill in the field of programming and ah" She hesitated before continuing "My esteemed background in mathematics and cryptography. I may be a woman, but I'm the best scientific mind these fools are likely to find"

That got a very short chuckle out of The Boss, which brought back a little more of the doctor's confidence. She took advantage of the boost to continue

"But...well. I didn't know they'd be bringing a hero like you in for this." She said "I ah, heard you helped us win the war against those bastards."

"That's what they tell me," Joy said dryly, the bare trace of a smile on her lips.

Dr. Sutton laughed, nervously pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose, feeling self conscious as a teenager again. "Well, as a girl who was dodging german bombs her whole childhood just for the chance to see the bloody stars, thank you"

"Dodging bombs just to see the stars?" Joy asked with a raise of her eyebrow "you must have been very passionate about them."

"Hah, or very stupid" Dr. Sutton smirked "My parents used to say the second one. But as a woman who can only...properly see the world under the cover of darkness, I feel it was the first. The moon and the stars were the only light I'd ever been able to truly appreciate. They wouldn't hurt me the way the bloody sun would. And I fell in love with their shapes and patterns"

"It must be difficult, a love affair with something so distant."

With a shake of her head, Dr. Strangelove responded.

"It's something I've become used to, J..ah," she swallowed "Boss. It gets easier as time goes on. Believe me" She stuck her hands in her pockets where they expected to find the frayed old bandana she once held for comfort only to find only pocket lint. Her shoulders quivered again.

She looked up to find Joy's hand on her shoulder , lending a solid weight to the lightheaded weightlessness of this surreal moment.

"Seems you are in the right field then. If anything will get you closer, it's this" She nodded her head towards one of the many posters talking of 'america touching the stars'

Harriet ran her hand through her hair, and gave Joy one of her rare smiles "Seems this job is going to get me closer to a lot of things I.." she hesitated "want...to be closer to. Like space. And ah…"

She felt her face heat once more. Dammit.

Joy once again showed some mercy, and pat her shoulder.

"how would you like to show me those heat shields now?"

"O….Okay" Dr. Sutton said with a stiff nod "Follow me, Boss. It's only just through these doors" She sat up straighter, and pushed her glasses up with a thin smile "Just can I squeeze you for one more little promise?"

Joy moved to follow her as Harriet pushed the doors to the engineering lab open "What sort of promise?"

"C..come look at the stars with me, sometime this week" Dr. Sutton requested, trying to stifle the pounding of her heart in her ears "And I will show you just why I fell in love with them"

There was a pause. It felt long, like one of the longest in the doctor's memory.

"I'll make time for it." Joy's answer was unchanged.

Dr. Sutton finally let out the breath she'd been holding, and winked at Joy over the edge of her glasses.

"Wonderful. I'll bring some tea." she chuckled "Now if you look to your left , You'll see the engineers working on the actual thrusters…."

Dr. Sutton and Joy toured the engineering lab for hours and hours, technology and small talk mingled into a pleasant buzz that carried the doctor through the rest of the day. And as she collapsed onto her favorite worn old armchair back at her apartment, her head swam with the anticipation the next few days would bring.

She'd done it. This was it.

This was the moment that would change everything. Two women lost in the sea of space and time, finally meeting again under the glittering sea of stars. Despite everything, she'd made it this far. Despite everything, she'd do it _right_ this time.


End file.
